My aunt Kay Jordan, who has died suddenly of meningitis, aged 63, was part of a generation trained at the Architectural Association in the 1960s who believed that architecture and town planning were important tools to be used to achieve social justice. They wanted to build more and better social housing and schools, and the infrastructure that the welfare state would require to enrich lives. Her life was dedicated to this socialist principle.

Kay was born in Halifax, West Yorkshire, and moved to London aged 18 to study architecture at the AA. She worked in private practice and went on to specialise in community architecture, working first at the housing co-operative Solon and then, in 1984, establishing the Spitalfields Small Business Association (SSBA).

Kay was an innovative and committed community advocate in Spitalfields and the East End of London, where she worked for many years as the chief executive of the SSBA. She developed residential and workshop accommodation for the Bangladeshi community in Spitalfields, continuously seeking sources of funding and even mortgaging her own flat for new building developments when there was no other way to finance projects. She created the Crown and Leek workshop, integrating training in building with spaces for small businesses. The project was acclaimed for its vision and innovation.

She went on to advise the Prince of Wales on community architecture. He took an interest in the conditions he found during a visit to the area and urged Business in the Community to get financially involved, later returning to discuss progress.

Kay developed Heba, a training project for Bangladeshi women, and Poetry in Wood, training adults with learning difficulties in woodwork and securing employment.

She campaigned tirelessly for community-led developments in the East End to ensure the retention of the Spitalfields market site for community use. She was a leader in the campaign to resite the building programme for Crossrail so that the local community would not be disadvantaged by its construction. She was appointed MBE in 1996.

Kay always put the communities she served first. Her passion and commitment came at a tremendous personal cost. She had to be seriously persuaded to take any time away from her work, and this inevitably undermined her own health.

She is survived by her brother Barry and her nephews, Nigel, Simon and me.